Barney's Version [HD]

My Favorite Movie Of All Time
I initially saw "Barney's Version," having never heard of it, at its New York premiere, expecting Dustin Hoffman to be there. He wasn't, but, that night, I experienced something I never had before (I'm 60). Yes, I had never cried so much from a film after laughing so much from the same film. Paul Giamatti wuz robbed, as he shoulda won the Oscar. Sure, Colin Firth was excellent, but Paul's acting was on a level that we experience perhaps once in a decade. Dustin is as terrific as he was in "Midnight Cowboy" & "Rain Man"--only subtler. Rosamund Pike, wearing auburn wigs throughout the film, is wonderful--a former Bond girl and Oxford graduate from England (in real life) as the most desirable woman one could ever imagine--brains, beauty, body, & wit to boot--the very essence of tranquility. I think that, for example, Jack Nicholson, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn is/were great. However, there is/was always a bit of Jack, Bette & Kate in all their films and in real life. Rosamund...

Great acting makes this tale of a second-rate life first-rate
Barney's Version is the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Canadian author Mordecai Richler.

Barney's Version is at its heart the life of Barney Panofsky, a Jewish man from Montreal who seems at once blessed by fate with opportunities but cursed by flaws that ultimately undo him. Irascible and impulsive, he has a charm that endears even as his behavior often appalls. He has the gift of recognizing the spark of creative genius in others but is seemingly incapable of producing it himself, spending most of his adult life as a producer of a long-running (and painfully banal) Canadian TV soap opera - Constable O'Malley of the North - through his company, the sardonically-named Totally Unnecessary Productions.

The film begins with Barney, on the eve of celebrating his soap opera's 30th year of production, having to contend with the publication of a book by an ex-cop purporting to reveal how Barney is guilty of murder. What follows is Barney's Version of...

A LIFE OF LOVE
BARNEY'S VERSION is one of those movies that critics love. They talk about the depth of the story, the fantastic acting, the way the movie felt and looked. And for once those who would discuss these and others items of the film have it right. This is one fine movie.

Paul Giamatti stars as Barney Panofsky, a studio producer looking back at his life. When it opens we see him doing his best to disrupt the life of his ex-wife by calling her husband at 3AM. From there we see him stopping at his favorite bar only to be hassled by an ex-police detective who's just released a book about the murder of Barney's best friend Boogie (Scott Speedman), a murder that the detective still believes Barney committed. But the body was never found. This confrontation leads to Barney's reflecting on his life.

We're taken back to the early 70s when Barney was living in Europe surrounding himself with bohemian friends all interested in art. But this isn't a world Barney can be a part of,...

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